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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27366847">Hogwarts Champion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera95/pseuds/Bagheera95'>Bagheera95</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rigel Black Chronicles (murkybluematter - fanfic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Divergent Universes, Gen, Gift!Fic, Hogwarts Houses, Hufflepuffs rock and I'm worried I didn't manage to express that very well, Tuesday Celebration Flash, changing the world, character study maybe?, half meta lbr, idek I tried</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:46:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>875</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27366847</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagheera95/pseuds/Bagheera95</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rigel Black. A Ravenclaw in snake's clothing - that's what they all said. But what if....</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The tuesday Celebration Flash</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hogwarts Champion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tossedwaves/gifts">tossedwaves</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p3">Harry never set out to change the world, that was for certain. All she wanted, all she had ever wanted (or so it had seemed) was to gain her Potions Mastery and become the best Potions Mistress imaginable.</p><p class="p3">Evading or eliminating the obstacles in her way wasn’t about bettering society, equality, or justice. Indeed, for years those concepts had never crossed her mind, her brain far too consumed by the enticing cry of <em>potions-potions-potions</em>.</p><p class="p3">Had Harry been born in a different universe, she’d be Sorted Ravenclaw in an instant. Any competing House traits are buried deep beneath an eleven year old’s desperate hunger for the knowledge of all things Potions. Harry has always had a burning desire to learn, to know, to understand. That curiosity can take you a long way on eagle wings.</p>
<hr/><p class="p3">But in this universe, things were different.</p><p class="p3">In this universe, by age eleven Harry had plotted and schemed in search of that knowledge. Her mind, at the moment of Sorting, wasn’t simply on her hunger for the Potions knowledge she could never gain from books. It was on the lengths she (and Archie) had taken to get here, on the years of lies and deception that lay ahead (the years that lay behind), on her <em>ambition</em>. </p><p class="p3">Not purely to know, but to have the accreditation that <em>PROVED</em> her expertise-to-be. And the mind the Sorting Hat encountered was one that had taken plenty of time to reflect on the motivations for her decisions.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p class="p3">
    <b> I'm here to sort you, not pass judgment on your life choices. </b>
  </p>
</blockquote><p class="p3">To acknowledge and accept the burning ambition that lay beneath Harry’s desperate search for knowledge; for <em>recognition</em>.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p class="p3">
    <b> I know just where to put someone with so many secrets to keep.<span class="apple-converted-space"><br/>
</span> </b>
  </p>
</blockquote><p class="p3">And so, Slytherin it was.</p><p class="p3">Truly, Harry’s (Rigel’s now) hopes had no bearing at all. Not in this universe.</p>
<hr/><p>In the next universe along, a sixteen year old boy makes a different choice when faced with a young girl’s corpse, and a male Harry grows up in his aunt’s home, orphaned and unloved. It’s not only his interests that are neglected, but his needs as well.</p><p class="p3">The hat sees that same thirst to prove himself, built on ten years of lived prejudice, but he turns it down.</p><p class="p3">Harry thinks of the words and actions of those he’s met so far in this strange new world. Of Hagrid’s simple kindness and sketched outline of a world broken into Good and Evil; Gryffindor and Slytherin. Of snooty noses, and smudged ones. Fledging friendships — the first of his life.</p><p class="p2">Just like in our universe, the hat promises greatness – the hunger is there.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p class="p3"> <b> Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that </b>.</p>
</blockquote><p class="p3">This left-handed Harry with red-trimmed robes? He could have done well in Slytherin. But in the House of Lions, his courage and friendships and reckless hot-headedness make him Great, anyway: The Chosen One, The Boy Who Lived.</p><p class="p2">We’ll never know if Slytherin could have helped smooth his journey.</p>
<hr/><p class="p3">And then there’s Hufflepuff. The house we haven’t considered yet, but not because they’re the house of left-overs or duffers. No. Harry – our Harry; Potions-obsessed halfblood, raised by the Marauders (and Lily), masquerading for now as Rigel Black, Heir of House Black – would never fit there. Not in Hufflepuff, the House of Loyalty, Fairness and Justice.</p><p class="p3">Not at eleven.</p><p class="p3">True, no one could possibly deny Rigel is hardworking. Indeed, it seems the boy never stops! Homework, Potions work, Independent Study, and that barely scrapes the surface. But all to further her ambition, to achieve her life’s dream (and maintain the charade).</p><p class="p3">Never because it’s “the right thing to do”. Or, well… not at first. Because that’s the thing about dreams. About setting them young and growing into them. You grow into the world, too.</p>
<hr/><p class="p3">The world seems so simple when you’re eleven. If you want something, go get it. Someone’s threatening you? Neutralise them. Someone’s hurting people? Stop them.</p><p class="p3">Black and white. Good and evil. </p><p class="p3">See the world through the freshly sorted eyes of young Gryffindor Harry.</p><p class="p3">Us and Them.</p><p class="p3">Voldemort, Riddle, SOW is threatening those that you love? There’s no other option than to fight. Dive down that trapdoor, stare him in the eye and negotiate Hogwarts’ neutrality.’</p><p class="p3">But.</p><p class="p3">Time passes. You grow older. The world gets bigger. <em>Your</em> world gets bigger. It stretches beyond Godric’s Hollow, Grimmauld and Remus’, Diagon and Hogwarts.</p><p class="p3">Serpents Storeroom, the Dancing Phoenix; The Lower Alleys. The Aldermaster’s house, and Potions Guild, opening its doors to you. Malfoy Manor and the pureblood elite, too. America - North and South, if only second-hand.</p><p class="p3">Contestants at Hogwarts from all across the world, with conflicting perspectives, attitudes and agendas. (The same, of course, could be said of those within. Harry’s fourteen now, and <em>everything</em> ispolitical.)</p><p class="p3">Somehow, your enemies are also your friends. Or, at least. To hurt your enemies, you must hurt your friends, too. And to some (all?) of your friends, when the truth is unravelled, you’ll become their enemy.</p><p class="p3">
  <em>Halfblood, Pureblood, Mudblood. Harry, Rigel, Harriet Potter. Student, brewer, duelist.</em>
</p><p class="p3">It could never last.</p>
<hr/><p class="p3">You step out to meet the crowd, green eyes gleaming and your head held high.</p><p class="p3">
  <em> Hufflepuff fairness, Ravenclaw hunger, Gryffindor courage, Slytherin greatness. </em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">It’s time to change the world.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” - J.K. Rowling</p></blockquote></div></div>
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